Press & Media

In over three decades of studying ferns, Duke University professor Kathleen Pryer has received her share of grant money. But for her newest project, she's getting help from a retired nurse in Canada and a 17-year-old in Arkansas.

With traditional funding stagnant and competition fierce, some scientists are using Internet sites such as Experiment to appeal to the public for money.

Ms. Wu and Mr. Luan both came from research backgrounds and, after finding it difficult to obtain funding, they founded Microryza, which has provided backing for more than 40 projects with a total of $350,000.

Kenly Hiller worked along the shore at the Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Falmouth. Hiller is trying to raise $6,000 so she can design and study barriers that block nitrogen runoff from polluting coastal waters.

A local researcher is pitching for dollars online to advance research on pet therapy for children who have cancer. Jessica Chubak believes people intuitively believe pets can reduce stress in cancer patients.

Research dollars in the United States are drying up: with the impact of the Federal sequester, the National Science Foundation estimates that it will end up funding 1,000 fewer projects over the course of the fiscal year, impacting about 12,000...

When two University of Washington graduates launched one of the first crowd-funding sites for science, they had to beat the bushes for projects. A year later, so many researchers are beating on Microryza's door that the startup born in Seattle is...

“What we’re seeing now is that the amount of funding available for research isn’t changing, but the amount of qualified researchers has more than doubled,” Cindy Wu, the co-founder of a science crowdfunding startup called Microryza, said in a phone interv

Denny Luan and Cindy Wu started Microryza--a crowd-funding platform for science research--when they couldn't find money for their own projects. While at the University of Washington, Wu became interested in bacteria that causes hospital acquired...

There are few institutions more traditional than academia. Hallowed halls, centuries-old architecture and distinguished alumnae and faculty making their mark on the world. A typical university is a multi-million dollar operation which faces the same conce

Elizabeth Iorns is on a mission to kill mutant sperm. She hopes to prevent transmission of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer by eradicating sperm carrying a specific gene mutation. Frustrated with traditional grants and private funders, Iorns...

Unbound, the UK's first 'crowdfunded' publisher, celebrated its second birthday in May. The site lets authors pitch novels to their online readers, who can then decide whether to support the project by donating money. This crowdfunding model has...

Economist Bisakha Sen wants to study how US states' gun laws and gun cultures correlate with certain crimes and with firearms deaths in each state — and whether differing laws and cultures in neighboring states "spill over" to influence a state's

Kickstarter, IndieGogo and other crowd funding sites are increasingly hosting an array of technology projects, with some raising a lot of money, while others have raised debate.

Starts at 24:00!

Dan Jaffe, a chemist at UW-Bothell, told Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat that after he had trouble finding funding support to study the question -- "I got the sense through channels that nobody wanted to touch this" -- he listed his proposal on a s

Atmospheric chemist Dan Jaffe’s proposal to monitor the trains reached its $18,000 “crowdfunding” goal Thursday, one day after a Seattle Times column about him and only a week after he first put up a request at science fundraising site Microryza.

Two former UW researchers started it last year after they became disillusioned with the way science is funded (or often, not). Can’t get your research backed by the usual government and corporate suspects? Then take it to the streets.

At the most basic level, science outreach can be defined as facilitating the understanding of science to non-scientists. While the overall objective of science outreach is clear, the ways in which engagement can occur are numerous. Traditional modes of sc

Ron Conway, David Lee, and Brian Pokorny meet new startup founders practically every day as investors at renowned angel funding firm SV Angel. So when they came backstage at this week's Disrupt NYC event after their on-stage talk with Michael...

Denny Luan and Cindy Wu, Microryza: The former University of Washington researchers and recent graduates of tech incubator Y Combinator are building a new crowdfunding platform for scientific research at Microryza. Launched last year, the site has been de

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Microryza project needs $2,668 to reach its goal of $5,100. There are 15 days left to donate. You can learn more about the space here.

A new crowdfunding platform site called Microryza has started funneling cash to dozens of high-risk scientific research programs, including a number of drug development efforts that would otherwise never see the light of day. Microryza's...

There was Microryza -- "Kickstarter for science;" Teespring -- "Kickstarter for T-shirts;" Watsi -- a non-profit aiming to leverage the crowd to finance individuals' medical care; Wefunder -- which wants to fund startups using the Kickstarter model; and...

Whether you think the hype around its startups is justified or not, Y Combinator is still one of the most notable Silicon Valley startup incubators to watch. Its bi-annual demo days are important events for both startups and investors in the tech...

Research projects often require funding; funding researchers may or may not be able to get based on their degree or college and university affiliations. Enter Microryza, a new crowdfunding site specifically for research. The startup lets you create a pro...

Inc. recently featured this so-called "Kickstarter for science," in a round-up of niche crowdfunding sites. Co-founders Cindy Wu and Denny Luan came up with the idea for Microryza when the pair, both 19 years old at the time, developed a treatment for Ant...

Microryza is democratizing scientific research. Microryza is a crowdfunding platform to follow and fund scientific research projects. On stage at Y Combiantor’s Demo Day, founder Cindy Wu said that funding for research projects is short-sighted and only a...

It's Demo Day time once again for Y Combinator, the startup incubator that has become a Silicon Valley institution since shaping its first class of startups back in 2005.

Microryza is a crowdfunding site for hard science research projects. While other sources exist for creative or other projects, sciences does not have an equivalent, the company says. Funders will get updates on the projects as it is progressing.

Front page of Reddit!

Platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo win hands down as the crowdfunding platforms that get the most attention and mind share of entrepreneurs and creative types. But they're not the only options out there--a slew of new, niche crowdfunding sites let t

There’s a relatively new crowdfunding platform that debuted in April 2012 called Microryza, named for mycorrhizae, very minute, symbiotic fungi that live in plant roots. Interestingly these fungi are of vast importance to plants as they support not only a

The average age in mission control was 26 when we put a man on the moon. Hundreds of thousands of Americans contributed to the effort and a half-billion people watched the first step. Microryza is a crowdfunding start up with a mission to bring that same...

You know we're all about finding new ways to support technological innovation via platforms like Kickstarter and Quirky, but what about scientific innovation?

> A Y Combinator-backed startup called Microryza is positioning itself as a “Kickstarter” for science research. The idea for Microryza sprouted when Cindy Wu, then an undergraduate at University of Washington, found that she had little hope of getting fundi...

For the past six months, ten teams from the University of Washington’s Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship have been working within a Tech Stars-esque Jones Milestones/Foster Accelerator and building their startups. Now, they’re being rewarded for their...

My name is Ethan O. Perlstein, and I'm an independent scientist. I'm joining the Experiment Team as a community manager/blogger for several reasons. First, I believe in the potential of crowdfunding to transform the way we finance and communicate...

Microryza: Founded by two former University of Washington researchers, this science-focused platform hosts a variety of research projects from both within and outside of universities.

We frequently get asked the question of why Microryza is a for-profit company. It's a very good question, and it's something that has always been an important part of our identity as a company. So this blog post will hopefully explain it for...

Micro-patronage could let researchers step around funding obstacles.

One of the newest trends in crowdfunding is raising money for academic research pursuits. A new portal launched in April of 2012 called Microryza just does this. I had the chance to speak to Cindy Wu, one of the founders who discussed how Microryza got o...

The first is Microryza, a crowdfunding platform for scientific research. I met founder Denny Luan in late 2011 at a Startup Weekend EDU event in Seattle where he pitched the idea and assembled a team that worked on this project. Microryza launched its...

The explosion of social media has spawned the phenomenon of crowd-funding. Charities, rock bands, individuals—anyone—can raise funds from people all over the world via online sites such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo.

Cindy Wu introduces Microryza, an online crowdfunding platform for scientific research at the Research2.0 launch workshop on the USC Health Sciences Campus on November 2nd, 2012.

Global recession has meant shrunken budgets.. And, despite strong economic arguments, scientific research has not been spared. Fortunately for some, such a change comes at a time when crowdfunding is all the rage.

“I like that [Myhrvold] said to embrace failure, which was reassuring,” said Denny Luan, founder of a crowd-funding website called Microryza, “because he definitely isn’t someone who you consider a failure.”

American scientists at the University of Washington in Seattle thought the public might well be up for that. In April, they set up Microryza, a website that allows scientists to pitch research projects which anyone could help fund. Co-founder Cindy Wu...

NECESSITY, so the proverb has it, is the mother of invention. And science is nothing if not inventive. So, as conventional sources of money get harder to tap (the success rate enjoyed by those applying for research grants from the National Institutes of...

Seattle-based Microryza, a crowdfunding platform for scientific research which launched in April 2012, recently announced the addition of five new projects to ts platform.

Microryza, a finalist that will be featured on stage at SIFP Seattle on October 18, 2012, has helped support a research group addressing a problem that is surprisingly prevalent. Greater than 400 million children worldwide are infected with intestinal...

Denny Luan at TEDxYouth@Seattle

Team GeekWire participated in the Geeks on a Train voyage between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C. as part of the GROW conference, taking place this week in Vancouver. We chatted with folks along the way, talking about a variety of topics. In this installment...

Microryza.com connects scientists with donors who can potentially fund their research. The Seattle-based staff screens proposed projects for feasibility and novelty and runs checks on applicants to prevent fraud.

Earlier this year, Denny Luan launched Microryza, a website that allows others to give money to research they care about. From bringing a triceratops to Seattle or developing Omnioff, a non-toxic alternative to Teflon non-stick cookware, the platform runs...

Earlier this year, Denny Luan launched Microryza, a website that allows others to give money to research they care about. From bringing a triceratops to Seattle or developing Omnioff, a non-toxic alternative to Teflon non-stick cookware, the platform runs...

Some of the social enterprises to watch out of Seattle, that all have a for-profit arm but socially motivated goals, says Engh, include: Stockbox Grocers (getting local food to food deserts), Microryza (crowdfunding for science research), Island Wood...

Although Microryza's name is hard to pronounce, its platform aims to make it easy for users to back projects they're interested in. The tongue twister is the name of a new crowd-funding website, created by a group of UW students frustrated with the...

This is a website that has real chance at changing the world and each of our lives. Perhaps you think I am exaggerating a bit, but let me assure you, I’m not. If you compare your life of that of your ancestors of just 100 years ago and the world of today...

Think of it like Kickstarter — just for hardcore science geeks. Microryza was started by Denny Luan and Cindy Wu, former University of Washington researchers who had grown frustrated with the bureaucratic and costly way in which many research efforts were...

This is awesome. Launching today is Microryza, a Seattle-based firm that is taking the popular crowd-based fundraising model and is applying it to a critical component of the modern economy: scientific research.

Many strange items have been found on Northwest beaches: Chinese porcelain, beeswax from the Philippines, Japanese tsunami debris, tennis shoes with feet inside, and sometimes even Asian castaways.